Accidental Deaths

Three people, including a 14-year-old boy, were killed Sunday morning when their sport utility vehicle rear-ended a big rig on the 210 Freeway in Sunland and became engulfed in flames, authorities said. The SUV was traveling west about 5 a.m. when it crashed into a lettuce-carrying big rig, which had been parked on the side of the freeway, according to California Highway Patrol and Los Angeles Fire Department officials. "It's unknown what lane they were traveling in or what speed they were traveling at," said CHP Officer Jennifer Connolly.

More than 2 million drop-side cribs built by Stork Craft Manufacturing Inc. are being recalled in the U.S. and Canada after the deaths of four infants. The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission and the Canadian government agency Health Canada issued the voluntary recall Monday in cooperation with Stork Craft, based in British Columbia. The recall includes more than 1.2 million cribs sold in the United States and 968,000 cribs sold in Canada, the commission said in a recall statement.

Sky diver Stephen Millard Harrington was making his last jump of the day. It was meant to be a relaxing drop that would cap a record-setting day in the skies above Riverside County. But Harrington apparently hit the tail of a twin-engine plane as he jumped out the door and plunged several thousand feet to his death Wednesday in Murrieta, according to authorities and fellow parachutists. The 40-year-old Boston resident was pronounced dead at 5:05 p.m., shortly after he crashed into a residential lot in the 38000 block of Calle de Lobo.

The 2009 Lexus ES 350 shot through suburban San Diego like a runaway missile, weaving at 120 miles an hour through rush hour freeway traffic as flames flashed from under the car. At the wheel, veteran California Highway Patrol Officer Mark Saylor desperately tried to control the 272-horsepower engine that was roaring at full throttle as his wife, teenage daughter and brother-in-law were gripped by fear. "We're in trouble. . . . There's no brakes," Saylor's brother-in-law Chris Lastrella told a police dispatcher over a cellphone.

Hundreds of children who were jammed into a narrow school staircase panicked and set off a stampede that left five girls dead and 31 students injured in India's capital. Five of the injured were in critical condition, said O.P. Kalra, medical superintendent of Guru Tegh Bahadur Hospital in East Delhi, where the children were taken. The stampede occurred early Thursday as students arrived for an exam, Kalra told reporters. Amod Kanth, a well-known child rights activist, said the students were told to move to a higher floor because heavy rain was causing flooding on the ground floor.

Reporting from Los Angeles and The Angeles National Forest -- Everything that has made the Angeles National Forest wildfire so fierce and intractable -- extreme heat, treacherous terrain, bone-dry conditions left by years of drought -- seems to have converged on the lonely hilltop where Ted Hall and Arnie Quinones died. Hidden in the forest, high above the Antelope Valley to the north and Los Angeles to the south, the hilltop is a hostile place now. By Monday, the flames had reduced the bluffs in every direction to a blackened moonscape, interrupted only by boulders, plumes of smoke and downed power lines draped like bunting from the gnarled limbs of charred trees.

The giant fire in Angeles National Forest continued its slow-motion rampage through the mountains Sunday, causing the deaths of two firefighters as it bore down on the semirural community of Acton and threatened to overrun Mt. Wilson. The two firefighters were killed when they drove off the side of a treacherous road in the Mt. Gleason area, south of Acton, around 2:30 p.m., said Los Angeles County Deputy Fire Chief Mike Bryant. He did not release their names or other details. "This accident is tragic," Bryant said, choking up as he spoke Sunday evening.

Six companies are recalling millions of window coverings after the strangulation deaths of three children on product cords, the Consumer Product Safety Commission said Wednesday. Two deaths were attributed to products from Lewis Hyman Inc. of Carson. The company recalled 4.2 million roll-up blinds with plastic slats, sold nationwide from 1999 through 2003 for $6 to $20, and 600,000 Woolrich Roman shades, which sold at Target from 2006 through 2008 for $25 to $43. One death was attributed to a product by Vertical Land Inc. of Panama City Beach, Fla., which recalled thousands of blinds and shades that sold at its Florida stores from 1992 to 2006 for $60 to $200.

The captain of the Tongan ferry that sank and left 93 people missing and presumed dead said Monday that he was pressured into sailing the vessel even though authorities knew it had problems. Capt. Maka Tuputupu blamed the sinking on rusted loading ramps that allowed water into the ship, and he said the Tongan government should take responsibility because it knew there were problems with the vessel. Tongan Prime Minister Feleti Sevele and Transportation Minister Paul Karalus have said the Princess Ashika was fully seaworthy, was fully certificated for the service and met all international maritime standards.

Juan Antonio and Belinda Sandoval loved taking trips with their young daughters. With both off work for the day, the pair, their two girls and a niece packed into a sport utility vehicle Tuesday and headed from their home in San Pedro to Legoland in Carlsbad. About halfway to their destination, as they headed south on Interstate 5 in Mission Viejo, the vehicle veered across the freeway, rolled down an embankment and caught fire.